NPER - ICO Review
In nearly every industry ranging from music to fan-fiction, authors of IP (intellectual property) are represented by companies that retain the rights to their IP in exchange for royalty payments. Such a system would be good for authors if the revenue-sharing payments were fair, however they're not. These large IP "holding" companies usually demand over 90% of profits from sales, usage and licensing of an author's IP. In fact it's not unheard of for authors of well known IP to receive just mere hundreds of dollars in royalty payments when the IP holding firm receives millions.
Whilst perfectly legal, this system is obviously not fair; NPER intends to change this by disrupting the IP industry entirely. Through a decentralized blockchain, users will be able to connect directly with artists, authors and copyright holders and purchase licensing to use content directly, bypassing the traditional monolithic and rather useless IP holding companies entirely. This will result in obvious savings to content purchasers since content can now be sold cheaper without middlemen involved, whilst vastly increasing the profits for IP holders as traditional revenue-sharing models can be turned upside down, as they should be.
NPER Platform
All sale of IP on the decentralized NPER platform will take place via smart contracts. These smart contracts will ensure that the terms of purchase and usage rights are enshrined in an agreement that cannot be changed after the fact or tampered with by anyone. Instantaneous usage rights of IP can be granted immediately upon purchase.
IP buyers and sellers will be able to conduct transactions directly through the NPER platform, in addition to other things
The heart of the platform will involve the NPER token. All transactions between buyers and sellers will require the NPER token for smart contract execution. The utility of the NPER token does not end there however. As seen in the above graph, a core part of the tokenomics of NPER will involve the NPER community. In essence, NPER token holders will vote on which IP they believe the NPER community should collectively purchase copyright rights to, either permanently or on a "lease" agreement. Depending upon the vote count, a certain percentage of ownership of the IP may be purchased and awarded to the community. As royalty payments come in for collective community held IP, equivalent rewards will be distributed to NPER token holders that took part in the voting. So in essence, the NPER token can serve as a way to receive collective community-held IP royalty rewards in addition to purchasing IP directly on an individual basis.
In addition to the above, NPER token holders will receive 30% of platform network fees. Network fees are very small payments (0.0025%) that involve block/hash verification. The NPER platform will take a very small commission on all transactions involving the NPER token of only 1%.
Roadmap
ICO & Token Purchase Details
The NPER ICO main crowdsale was already held In December 2017, however the token can currently be purchased on korean exchanges such as Coinrale.
Exchange rate was set at 1 ETH per 5,000 NPER.
Hardcap was set at 10,000 ETH.
Total circulating supply is 250,000,000 NPER.
There was a pre-sale of 10% of the tokens that offered a small 15% bonus, with no bonus offered in the main sale. Now, I must say that it's an absolute pleasure to see an ICO with a pre-sale offering such a small bonus. So many projects I review have huge bonuses for pre-ICO investors who go on to dump their tokens on exchanges below ICO price immediately after the ICO, hurting all ICO investors. I've been very critical of this practice, especially on BitCoinTalk forum. It's good to see that the NPER team also "gets it" by offering only a very small bonus to these pre-sale investors. This makes the ICO incredibly attractive and fair in my eyes, and reflects well on the overall project. This shows the NPER team is concerned with ensuring optimal value of the token.
Token distribution also appears to be somewhat reasonable. 20% was reserved for the founders. Whilst slightly high, professional ICOs do typically demand 20-30% for the founder's team to encourage project development, so this isn't a big issue. It's good to see that 40% will be held by the NPER platform itself for market development and other things.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that IP holding companies are slowly destroying the creativity and rights of content creators through their monopolistic business practices of requiring these content creators to essentially "hand over" all of their IP rights in order to gain any form of exposure. In return, the content creators are rewarded with an absolute pittance from these companies.
NPER essentially bypasses these centralized, unfair companies and the royalty industry entirely by offering a decentralized platform where IP sellers and buyers can connect directly. If companies want to purchase IP rights from a seller, they can do so on the NPER platform only after competing with all other companies and users that also wish to do so. This will encourage competition, something that is sorely needed in the industry. The NPER token also seems to have a number of use cases, from both a utility and investment perspective.
Links
Website
Whitepaper
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://icoveteran.com/nper/